Summer 2009

Phone Scoop gets some hands-on time with a whole bunch of new phones, including the BlackBerry Tour, Motorola Karma, Nokia E72, Samsung Exclaim and the Sony Ericsson Satio.

Nokia's E72 was the best phone we saw at the Pepcom event. Truly a well thought-out and well put-together device.

Nokia E72

Click a thumbnail above for a larger view.

The materials of the E72 are all top-notch. Everything about it feels solid. The back plate is made of metal and the the finish is a nice matte black.

It is just a hair wider than the E71, and this lets Nokia give it a slightly bigger keyboard. The keyboard of the E71 was fantastic, and the E72's is just as good. The keys have the same shape and feel, and because it is factionally wider, I found it a bit easier to type on. The camera module appears to bulge just a bit more than that of the E71, and we chalk this up to its spec jump from 3.2 megapixels to 5.0 megapixels.

The navigation cluster has been changed up a bit. I can't say it is better or worse than that of the E71, it's just different. The most noticeable aspect is that the shortcut keys to email, calendar, contacts, etc., have been made slightly bigger.

My favorite feature, of course, is the 3.5mm headset jack, which Nokia has wisely been putting on its E Series devices lately.

The one negative thing I'll say about the E72 is the screen. It uses the same 240 x 320 screen of the E71. Compared to the high-resolution devices that are being kicked out by the competition lately, the E72's screen looked downright dreary.